The present invention relates to a duplication apparatus, and more particularly, to a duplication apparatus which automatically selects a copy mode being appropriate for the quality of a signal recorded on a source recording medium, to record the recorded signal of the source recording medium on a recording medium to be a duplication object.
As an example of a duplication apparatus, there is a dual deck VCR which includes two decks. The two decks can perform recording and playback, respectively. In this case, when tape is duplicated, information of a source tape reproduced from one deck is recorded on a blank tape loaded in the other deck. There are two types of duplication methods in case of a dual deck VCR, in which one is a first copy method (hereinafter referred to as a signal copy) for recording a final output which is played back from a deck set and displayed on a screen, that is, a signal which is frequency-modulated and demodulated again, and the other is a second copy method (hereinafter an frequency modulation (FM) copy) for recording an envelope signal which is picked up via a preamplifier. The signal copy method and an FM copy method can be selected on a menu screen by a user.
FIGS. 1A and 1B are graphical views for comparing and illustrating FM bands of a high-quality (hereinafter referred to as Super-VHS or S-VHS tape) and a normal tape (hereinafter referred to as Normal-VHS or N-VHS). Here, a horizontal axis represents a frequency (f), and a vertical axis represents a gain. The S-VHS tape is different from the N-VHS tape in the case of the FM band on which the essential information is loaded. In FIG. 1A, a graph "A" represents a low-band converted carrier color signal, and a graph "B" represents an FM modulated luminance signal. A hatched portion of the FM modulated luminance signal "B" represents an FM carrier frequency deviation. The FM carrier frequency deviation (hatched portion) of the N-VHS is between 3.4 MHz and 4.4 MHz as shown in FIG. 1A, and the FM carrier frequency deviation (hatched portion) of the S-VHS is between 5.4 MHz and 7 MHz as shown in FIG. 1B. The FM carrier frequency deviation on which the essential information is loaded is higher in the S-VHS than in the N-VHS. Accordingly, the S-VHS can be recorded and reproduced only via a high-definition VCR that is called a super VCR, and cannot be recorded and reproduced in a general VCR.
Therefore, a high-definition signal amplifier should be additionally provided in order to reproduce high-definition information from a tape in a general VCR. The high-definition signal amplifier amplifies a high-band portion on which the FM carrier frequency of the S-VHS is loaded, to thereby enable the high-definition signal to be reproduced. However, as shown in FIGS. 1A and 1B, since the FM signal band of the S-VHS on which the essential information is loaded is much different from that of the N-VHS, a high-band signal of a copied FM signal cannot be restored during reproduction. In other words, when a source tape is an S-VHS tape, signals can be recorded on an N-VHS tape, but the recorded signals cannot be restored on a screen. When a thus-recorded tape is played back, an image is processed as black on the screen. However, a signal copy which duplicates the final output from the deck set as it is, causes degradation of a picture quality but enables picture reproduction.
Thus, if a copy mode of the dual deck VCR is currently set to a signal copy mode, the information recorded on the S-VHS tape can be duplicated and reproduced. However, if a copy mode of the dual deck VCR is set to an FM copy mode, the information recorded on the S-VHS tape can be duplicated but cannot be reproduced.
If a user recognizes a copy mode according to the picture quality of a tape as described above, a copy mode may be manually set considering the picture quality of the tape. However, if a user does not know a copy mode, the user feels inconvenience in use of the VCR and may request an unnecessary after-service. Such a problem frequently occurs when a duplication operation is performed between recording mediums providing different qualities.